The Transferability of Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS) for Child Life Specialists Working in Pediatric Rehabilitation: A Critical Review of the Literature

There is much variation in the way child life specialists implement and document their interventions and services, especially among practice arenas. This variation includes the methods child life specialists use to set individual goals with pediatric clients and families, as well as to evaluate the effectiveness of their interventions and services. The purpose of this paper is to highlight how goal attainment scaling (GAS) could and should be integrated into the daily practices of child life specialists working in a pediatric rehabilitation setting. GAS is a widely used individualized outcome measure, designed to assess whether individuals have achieved the goals of intervention by quantifying their progress (Kiresuk & Sherman, 1968). As there is currently no literature on the integration or utility of GAS as an outcome measure for child life specialists, this paper will critically examine the available peer-reviewed literature to demonstrate how and why GAS is currently being implemented in pediatric rehabilitative settings by other health care practitioners. Recommendations for the transferability of GAS in child life practice will subsequently be discussed to not only address this gap in knowledge but to further emphasize the benefits of using an individualized outcome measure in clinical practice.